Lines In The Sand
by The Sacred and Profane
Summary: Cloud and co. choose sides after Tifa and Squall get in a fight. Oneshot for Rhino7.


Lines In The Sand

AN: I own nothing in this story. Please R&R.

"Can you believe it?! He tells me he's too tired when I've seen him work forty hours straight and still be as alert as ever!" Tifa ranted to Aerith.

"Well he's always been the most diligent out of all of us, save for Merlin. He also harbors the most responsibility, as wrong as that may be, so if he's too tired, let him rest."

Tifa looked at Aerith like she'd just suggested to rob Scrooge and blame it on his nephews.

"Are you taking his side?"

"I'm just trying to get you to see things from his point of view, Tifa."

But soon enough the fist fighter left, lips set in a firm line.

/

"WHAT?!" Yuffie gaped like a guppy, soon chopping Squall on his shoulder. "You're such an idiot!"

Squall looked amused, thought most people would just see a slight upturn in his lips but Yuffie could read him like a book. "I was tired though."

"So? After all the drama you and Tifa went through to actually become a couple, you need to do whatever she asks. I mean if I was you and I had someone like Tifa, I'd be ready whenever she asked, regardless of how I really felt."

"Are you taking her side?"

"Well duh! She's suffered so much Squall, looking for Cloud, trying to get you to open up, along with whatever crazy adventures she's been on all by herself. So just grin and bear it!"

"Whatever," Squall replied, leaving the ninja doing her best impression of bulging water balloon with her cheeks.

/

Cid chuckled as he saw Cloud scowl at Squall, the scarred young man soon leaving and not responding at all to the glare that went with the hateful expression.

"You two never were the best of friends."

"We tolerate each other," Cloud replied, walking over to Cid. "But now I'm wishing he'd at least respond so I could knock some respect into his head for ignoring Tifa. Taking his side like Aerith?"

"I'm not taking any sides. No favorites with your kids."

"We're not kids."

Cid just snorted at that and ruffled Cloud's hair like he did in the face of a seven year old Cloud's temper tantrums. "You'll always be kids to me."

Cloud just rolled his eyes but Cid spotted the slight smile on his face as he went off to who knows where.

/

Yuffie pointed an accusing finger at Merlin, face red from disbelief and exasperation with the wizard for taking Squall's side. "You're using your future peepers to see how this all ends up!"

The wizard responded with a narrowing of his bushy eyebrows, drawing himself up to his full height and majesty, Yuffie losing her nerve and quaking a bit in the face of his sudden transformation.

"You know little of the man or what he's been through!"

"I've known him most of my life!" Yuffie managed to shout back. Merlin sighed then and his form shrunk back to the kindly eccentric he usually acted like.

"Yes, most of this one but there are other lives for most of us though we can't often recall those parts of our existence. Squall Leonhart is one of the few who retain the burdens of what should by rights be forgotten."

"What are you talking about?"

"A never-ending cycle and he was both the catalyst and the ending. Nearly impossible to break free and continue, but he managed to break free though not through his own doing. The cost will forever haunt him but she can heal him once more. One of them is always waiting for the other." The wizard's eyes locked with Yuffie's then and he smiled sadly. "But I've revealed too much. Forget everything I've spoken about Squall."

Yuffie blinked her eyes a few seconds later.

"Did you say something Merlin?"

"No Yuffie. Did you wish to speak to me?"

"Oh yeah! So who do you choose to side with on this whole Tifa/Squall business?"

"Is it really our business to get involved with their relationship on such a level?"

"Yeah! We're all a family!"

"Then I choose Cid's position."

"You mean you already knew?! You and your magic! Arrgh, it's no fair!"

"Life rarely is Yuffie."

"Well I've wasted my time then. Guess it'll just be Cloud and I against Aerith then." And with that, Yuffie left, leaving a chuckling wizard in her wake.

Just like Yuffie to choose sides in a miniscule fight to try and calm her own inner fears about losing her family, the wizard thought.

If only she knew what waited for her.

/

Cloud and Yuffie were chugging down milk like it would vanish, a result of Aerith adding "just a pinch" of spice to their plates as revenge for last week's super glue incident.

"Don't you think we should tell them we're not fighting anymore?" Tifa asked.

"And miss all the fun?" Squall replied.

Tifa smirked as she looked at her family, moving a bit closer to Squall as a sudden memory flared to life. A spiky-haired blond chasing a petite brunette for eating the last hot dog, Squall at her side, looking younger and with a longer scar. She had been outright giggling in the memory before being distracted by Angelo nuzzling into her side.

Blinking a bit as Squall called her name, she returned to the present, Yuffie and Cloud glaring at Aerith.

"You okay?"

Tifa smiled, a finger tracing his scar as his arms wrapped around her and she murmured a few lines of an old song that had been stuck in her head the past few days.

"So let me come to you, close as I want to be..."


End file.
